by Leo Suarez

My Summer 2024 E-Bike Retrospective

Raleigh is Poised for a Leap in Cycling Activity Thanks to Electric Bicycles

This is my current thinking after my family purchased a pair of e-bikes in Spring 2024. After putting almost 400 miles on them between my wife and me, I’m convinced we’re closer to more bicycle adoption in Raleigh. If the infrastructure continues to improve, the numbers will keep climbing.

Raleigh certainly has some rolling hills, and while those hills may be fine for a nice bike ride, if we want Raleighites to navigate the city casually (and more often), overcoming these hills and creating safer routes is key. E-bikes solve the first issue, making hills less daunting with electric assistance. I knew this going in, but after extensive use, my expectations were surpassed in how “flat” the city feels on an e-bike.

The Rides

We visited East Coast Electric Speed Shop and test rode some bikes. They primarily carry the Aventon brand, which we found suitable after some online research. We stopped at a few other shops too, but East Coast was friendly and informative. It helps that they’re located in downtown Raleigh.

We purchased a Pace commuter bike and an Abound cargo bike. As a family of three, the cargo bike’s main purpose is for our little one to ride on the back, and we got all the necessary accessories for that. Sometimes, there might even be a pizza or two back there!

In addition to adding panniers to the commuter bike, we got solid U-locks to protect our investment. At this point, we were ready to go just about anywhere inside the beltline—until the battery got low enough that we had to turn back of course.

Popular Rides

Before purchasing the bikes, I received many comments about how great they are on trails. While that sounds nice, our motivation was to use our car less and commute around Raleigh. We can’t even transport these bikes on our car at the moment.

The bikes are mainly used for commuting—getting from point A to point B, doing something, and returning. We’ve used them to go to work, run errands, enjoy date nights, and have family outings. While there were a couple of fun rides, such as grabbing some blog photos, most of the time, it was all about commuting.

Since we both work downtown, our daily commute is biggest use case. In addition to that, these bikes also took us to some of our typical stops, which include:

  • Five Points
  • Alexander YMCA
  • Alamo Drafthouse
  • Dix Park
  • Chavis Park
  • Anywhere in downtown Raleigh

I think we have yet to ride them to The Village, but that seems easy enough. We also want to ride out to the North Carolina Art Museum. Ask me sometime about my NCMA to Dix Park e-bike tour idea!

Some of you might think this can all be done on regular bikes. I agree, but personally, I’m not biking in the summer regularly. Biking is for commuting, not for sweating. With the e-assist mode set right, it’s an easy pedal to my destination. I only got mildly warm on the hottest days, even in business casual attire after hitting the gym and returning to the office.

Bike Infrastructure and Routes

Riding a bike around the city rewires your brain; routes to and from locations don’t seem optimal anymore. Instead of direct street routes, prioritizing bicycle infrastructure and low car speeds becomes essential.

For example, getting to Five Points from downtown Raleigh isn’t ideal via Glenwood Avenue, where cars tend to exceed the 35 mph speed limit. Instead, I prefer riding up the near-dead West Street, under Wade Avenue using a greenway, and north on Fairview to Five Points. You encounter neighborhood-level car traffic at neighborhood-level speeds. If you know Fairview, on an e-bike, you can glide up the hill toward Five Points with little effort.

It’s similar for reaching the Alamo Drafthouse. I would never ride on New Bern Avenue, but Oakwood Avenue runs parallel and has much slower traffic. You can then use King Charles Road to access the shopping center across New Bern Ave.

Neighborhood streets are perfect for cycling. With low car speeds and volumes, I’m not sure any bike infrastructure is necessary. As long as cars go slow—probably 20 mph or less—riding alongside them seems tolerable. That could be up for debate, but that’s my current stance.

With roads featuring higher car speeds, things change.

Peace Street is one example. It’s tough to avoid Peace, as the street grid north and south has created a bottleneck. The wide road results in higher speeds. Currently, we have a painted bike lane that feels subpar for cyclist safety. It also ends beneath the train tracks. It seems this ridiculously long center turn lane is prioritized over continuing the bike lane east of the tracks. Come on, Raleigh.

I’m in the “bike lane optional” camp right now. I’ll use it if I want to, but the bike lanes in downtown Raleigh are too short, making it feel like you must exit soon after entering. Frequent “disturbances” like parked cars, trash cans, dumpsters, and even parked scooters interrupt the flow.

Construction also disrupts bike lanes. While I understand that sidewalks need to close, it would be great to see our city require construction sites that close sidewalks and bike lanes to build temporary tunnels for riders and walkers.

So, I often just use the car lane anyway and don’t bother with the bike lane most of the time.

Final Thoughts

With cooler months ahead, I’m looking forward to getting out more on the e-bike. There are additional logistics to consider, like battery storage and recharging, but I’ll leave out those as nitpicks for now. Also, bicycle parking for e-bikes requires more design thought than typical bike racks. Custom racks with highly designed aesthetics are often quite impractical for e-bike riders with heavy-duty U-locks.

The future looks bright for biking if we can follow through on some initiatives. The city is set to roll out an e-bike incentive program, which should increase the number of bikes on the road. An update to the Bike Raleigh Plan may add more bike infrastructure around the city. Finally, the city is piloting new methods to implement separated bike lanes rather than just paint.

Bring it on!

Similar Posts:

Comments

Comments are disabled here. That's because we're all hanging out on the DTRaleigh Community, an online forum for passionate fans of the Oak City.